


the hardest thing i'll ever have to lie

by lunarqueens



Category: Scrubs (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, there's some fluffy stuff at the end tho, they are both Gay Messes, this is mostly sad tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-04 21:20:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13373280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunarqueens/pseuds/lunarqueens
Summary: “Look, Newbie,” he said, not even trying to hide the panic seeping into his voice this time as he started to back away. “Just go to bed. I’m leaving now, just -”“I’m in love with you.”He froze.(or; JD gets drunk and Perry takes him home. JD makes a confession that has the potential to change, well,everything.)





	1. always on your side

**Author's Note:**

> hey hey hey, it's me (again) back w more jdox fic! this one is a lot more angsty then the other two I've posted so far, and it's a multi-chapter one, not going to be super long though. I hope it's enjoyable!
> 
> also, I just wanted to thank everyone who's been leaving comments/kudos on my fics, it seriously makes me day every time :^) this is the first time I've really posted any of my fanfics anywhere and it's really encouraging to see that people actually enjoy them!

He knew this would happen. He knew this would happen because it _always_ did, so why the hell should he be surprised?

It was a couple of hours past midnight - Perry wasn’t sure of the exact time, but he was guessing it was close to three in the morning. The bar was loud and dim and far too hot. There was hardly space to breathe, let alone drag a drunken, full-grown man across the room and out the door without seriously injuring one or several people.

And yet here he was, attempting to do just that.

“Come on, kid,” he muttered, shouldering a few more people out of the way as he led JD through the crowd. The younger man hardly seemed to notice what was going on; his eyes were hazy and his arm was slung loosely over Perry’s shoulders, his feet meandering lazily across the ground as he struggled to stay upright. 

“Put too much ‘tini in my apple,” he complained as Perry continued shoving people out of their way to create a path. 

“Of course they did,” Perry grumbled under his breath. “Only you could manage to get completely smashed off of appletinis, y’know that, Sharon?” Pushing past a drunken group of middle-aged men, he let out a sigh of relief as the door finally came into view. The noise was really starting to grate on his nerves, and he didn’t trust himself not to start shouting at someone if they didn’t get out of there _now_. 

He shoved the door open with one hand, the other still occupied with keeping JD from falling flat on his face. “You’re lucky I was here tonight, Newbie,” he grunted, half-carrying the kid down the front steps. “Otherwise you’d be crashing in one of those beer-sticky bar booths that have probably gotten puked on at least twelve times in the past week.” 

JD wasn’t listening, and Perry was completely aware of that, but he kept on talking. “If you weren’t so shitfaced, I’d expect you to thank me. Not that you care, but the only reason _I’m_ not shitfaced right now is because I figured I’d end up having to drag you home at some point. And bingo - I was _right_ on the nose!” 

“So really, Abigail, you owe me one. I came out here tonight to get drunk off my ass, and instead I’m here, chauffeuring you home. I hope you realize the sacrifice I’m making. I don’t give up scotch for just _anyone_ , y’know, Newbie.” he paused to tug his car keys out of his pocket. “Actually, I really don’t know why I’m doing this in the first place. You annoy the hell out of me when you’re sober, so by all means you should be just as annoying when drunk, if not even more so. Although I guess there’s a definite advantage here since you aren’t talking my ear off about your girly prepubescent problems like you usually do.”

Blearily, JD stared up at him. “Please don’ kill me, but I have no idea what you just said, Per...Dr. Cox.”

Perry sighed. “Yeah, figures. Just get in the damn car, Patty.”

JD nodded and stepped - well, more like fell, really - into the passenger’s seat of Perry’s Porsche. Perry reached over him to buckle his seatbelt, inwardly flinching as JD slumped forward, almost knocking against his arm. He pulled away quickly before they could touch and got into the driver’s seat.

As they drove, he found himself glancing at JD out of the corner of his eye. Surprisingly, the kid hadn’t passed out yet - he was staring out the window, the lights of the city shifting and striping across his face. His eyes looked brighter than usual, and Perry realized with a start that he was crying.

 _That’s new_.

The kicker was this - this was not, in fact, the first time this had happened. Well, okay, not the crying. That part was different. And he had never been quite _this_ bad before, not _this_ level of completely-off-his-ass drunk. But the whole _JD alone at the bar, Perry ending up at that same bar and watching as JD progressively got more and more drunk before finally taking pity on him and driving the kid home_ thing - that had happened, let’s say, about four or five times over the past couple of months. 

As much as he hated to admit it, Perry was starting to get worried. 

(He would never, _ever_ admit this to anyone, not if his life depended on it, but he’d started to frequent that particular bar on the nights he went out, just in case JD happened to be there having one of his little one-man parties.)

Newbie never remembered anything the next day, either. At least, Perry assumed he didn’t, because he never acted any different around Perry afterwards. He didn’t try to thank him or fall all over him crying or anything, which Perry had kind of suspected would happen after the first one or two times. Instead, he was just as bubbly and talkative and infuriatingly annoying as usual. 

Although - 

The past two or so months, he had seemed a little bit...off. Not hugely, nothing major or earth-shattering, but Perry couldn’t deny he’d noticed a slight change in the younger doctor’s behavior. He would take longer to respond to questions, emerge from the on-call room with the skin under his eyes looking bruised and shadowy, his eyes shot through with red. Perry wasn’t sure if he’d been eating, either; he never saw him in the cafeteria at all anymore. 

(Alright, so he _was_ worried, and he missed Newbie. He did. Not that he’d ever say anything. Not that he’d ever do anything about the things he may or may not be feeling, because he was a walking, talking black hole and there was no way he was going to drag JD into that, no way he was willing to put him through the disaster that was Perry Cox. No matter how hard it got, he would _not_ do that.) 

(Just no fucking way.)

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see JD now, tear tracks glittering on his cheeks. Ignoring the tug he felt in his chest, Perry pulled up in front of JD’s apartment and stepped out of the car before walking around and opening up the other door. “C’mon, kid. Let’s get you inside.”

JD nodded but didn’t speak. The tears were still coming, faster now, coursing down his face. He gripped Perry’s shoulder as he stepped unsteadily onto the sidewalk. Perry helped him to stand up straight (decently straight, anyway) and began to walk him toward the door.

“We’re taking the elevator,” he informed him as they pushed through the front doors. “If you tried to go up the stairs in that state you’d break your legs and my back, probably. And I don’t care how drunk you are, Cathy, I’d sue the shit _right out_ of you.”

Despite that delightfully witty comment, JD didn’t laugh, or even smile. He just angled himself toward the elevators and let Perry help him over walk in that direction.

As he pressed the button and they waited for the elevator, there was silence. It was only when the doors opened with a ding! that JD looked at Perry and said in a crumbling voice almost too quiet to be heard, “I remember the other times.”

Perry froze, one foot in the elevator. “...what?”

“The other nights,” JD slurred slightly, pulling Perry fully into the elevator with him. “I remem’br. You took me home, every time. I’ve been totally wasted an’ you took me home. Why?”

He felt his face go blank, turn guarded. “Why what, Newbie?”

“Why’d you do that? You don’t have to take me home. You could just leave me there…” his eyes started to slip shut, but he struggled to keep them open, struggled to keep looking at Perry.

“No,” he said sharply, looking anywhere but JD’s face, “I couldn’t.”

“But why -”

Perry interrupted him, his tone cold and clipped. They had reached JD’s floor, and he was again half-carrying the other man as they staggered down the hallway to his apartment. “You need to go to bed, Newbie. Drink some water. You’ll need it tomorrow morning.”

“But -”

“ _Go_ ,” he said, trying hard to keep his voice from breaking. This needed to end. JD needed to go home and then he needed to leave _right now_ , before he did something he’d regret, before he gave in and said all the things he knew he had no right to say.

But JD wasn’t going inside. He was just leaning on the door, staring at Perry with eyes that were impossibly blue and unfairly big. He looked like a kicked puppy.

“Would you please just save us the time and spit it out,” Perry finally snapped. “You’re drunk as all hell, JD, and if there’s something you want to say you may as well say it and then go to bed already. It’s not like you’ll remember this tomorrow.”

(But was that true? He’d remembered the other times, apparently. All Perry could do was cling to the tiny shred of hope that this time JD would be too drunk and that all this would just slip away when he woke up.)

As he stood there, waiting for a reply, there was a change in JD’s demeanor. His eyes widened even more (because apparently that was possible by some mistake of nature) and his lips parted slightly, giving him the general air of someone who had just walked in on their lifelong celebrity crush lying barely clothed in their bed.

“You called me JD,” he said, his voice nearly a whisper.

(Fucking hell. He had, hadn’t he?)

Perry avoided his eyes. “Might have, yeah.”

That had probably been a mistake. When he looked up at JD and saw tears welling in his eyes again, he knew it had _definitely_ been a mistake.

“Look, Newbie,” he said, not even trying to hide the panic seeping into his voice this time as he started to back away. “Just go to bed. I’m leaving now, just -”

“I’m in love with you.”

He froze.

Every single muscle in Perry’s body seemed to have short-circuited. He was halfway turned around, facing in the direction of the stairs, but he could still see part of JD’s face out of the corner of his eye. Newbie had the strangest expression on his face; he looked aghast at the sentence that had just come out of his mouth, but there was something else there too. What was it - anticipation? Anxiety?

That was when it hit him, and when it did, Perry nearly broke down right there.

It was hope. JD looked hopeful.

Perry could feel his chest caving in as he turned around and said, in an cool and controlled voice, “Go home, Newbie. We have work tomorrow.”

He turned away before he could see the other man’s expression.

Perry Cox felt cataclysmic. He felt like a natural disaster. A walking tsunami.

He walked away, down the stairs, out the doors, into the deadened street. He sat in his car for a good fifteen minutes, just staring, before finally turning the key in the ignition and driving away. His mind, his chest, his stomach, everything in him flipped between feeling empty one moment and decimated the next. It was too much, but at the same time, never enough.

A natural fucking disaster.

Perry tried to push away everything JD’s last sentence had dredged up. He tried to lock it away in a box, neat and orderly, like he almost always could with situations like this - situations he’d give anything not to face. He’d gotten so good at it over the years that it was almost sad.

(It was definitely sad.)

But this? This, he couldn’t lock away. This was the end of everything, probably. Because for the first time in his life, Perry had absolutely no idea what the hell he was supposed to do. He wasn’t in control. Maybe he wouldn’t be ever again.

He had no idea, _no fucking idea_ , what to do.

And still there was JD’s voice, sounding like a broken bone, pulling everything out of him and laying it out in the open where it was impossible to hide from it anymore.

(Why did he always have to be so hell-bent on destroying himself?)


	2. take this longing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do you remember,” he said hoarsely, “what you said last night, Newbie?”
> 
> JD felt his blood run cold. No, he didn’t remember what he’d said last night, but judging by the older man’s face, it hadn’t been anything good.
> 
> _Shit. Shit, shit, shit. What did you say to him last night, you idiot? This is why you shouldn’t overdo it with the ‘tini!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter, woohoo! this one is also v angsty but much more JD-centric. thank you to everyone who's commented & left kudos, I really appreciate it :^) I hope everyone enjoys this chapter!

The very first thing that registered was that his head hurt.

Not just a little bit. No, this felt more like someone had decided to pluck it clean off his neck and use it as a ping-pong ball. Except instead of a paddle, they used a baseball bat. And instead of a regular ping-pong table, they had used a cement floor that was also happened to be covered in - hmm, spikes. Yeah, that was it.

JD groaned. He tried to open his eyes, but flinched and closed them again as soon as the light hit them. What idiot had left his blinds open? He always closed his blinds for this exact reason. The sun was just too damn bright in the morning. 

Not only that, but why was he so uncomfortable? Squinting, JD was able to discern that rather than the comfortable sweatpants he normally wore to bed, he was wearing a stiff pair of jeans and a sweaty long-sleeved shirt. And...were his shoes still on? How tired had be been after work yesterday? It seemed like he’d just staggered into his room and -

Oh. 

Oh _fuck_.

“Dammit!” he gasped, clutching his head with both hands. It was all flooding back - not slowly or gently, but everything, all at once, like a bucket of ice water dumped over his head. The bar, the appletinis (okay, that was pretty pathetic now that he thought about it - who gets drunk off appletinis?), everything growing steadily more and more hazy as he got more drunk. What the hell had he been thinking? He had work in (he glanced at the clock with his eyes still squinted nearly all the way shut) forty-two minutes!

He half-rolled out of bed and started digging for a clean pair of scrubs. All the while, something kept tugging at the back of his mind.

It felt like he was forgetting something. Something important. 

JD paused, a sock dangling from his hand. He’d gotten drunk - obviously, that had already been established. If he was remembering right, he’d been way too drunk to get himself home, so how had he ended up back in bed? It couldn’t have been Turk; his best friend had spent the night at Carla’s last night, and he hadn’t even known JD was going out. Had he called himself a cab at some point?

Wait. No, wait.

It was Perry. _Again_. Of course it was Perry.

JD buried his hands in his hair, squeezing his eyes shut again. It had happened again. What was this, the fifth time? He’d gone out to get drunk (ironically enough, though he still refused to fully admit this to himself, Perry was the reason he’d wanted to get drunk in the first place) and again, his mentor had been there. Again, he’d taken JD home, totally wasted, probably babbling like an idiot. 

Why did he keep doing that? Why was he always there, every time this happened?

He always seemed to show up at a point which JD was too drunk to notice him there, which was probably a good thing. (He didn't even want to think about the stupid things he'd say if he ran into Perry at a bar while he was that smashed.) But he always swooped in to carry him home, drag him up to his apartment, make sure he made it home without getting killed. And for the life of him JD could not seem to figure out _why_.

As far as he could tell, Perry Cox had nothing but disdain for him. Maybe there was a tiny little ounce of fondness buried in there somewhere, but there certainly didn’t seem to be much, as he'd noticed all too well. Hell, that was the entire reason JD kept doing this - to forget, for a little while, about the longing he couldn’t get to go away. To forget about all the things he wanted that he knew he’d damn sure never have. 

But he couldn’t even have that, because Perry showed up even there and saved him and took him home even though he shouldn’t even care at all. That happened _every_ time and all JD could do was wonder _why_ , why he didn’t just leave him there to rot, why he didn’t just call him girls’ names and leave JD alone at the bar to pass out. Honestly, if he did that, it would make things easier. 

Each time he carried JD out to his car and brought him home, all without laughing at him or shouting at him or even just glaring, JD just fell more in love with him.

And it was starting to kill him.

Clenching his jaw, he picked up a pair of scrubs and started to get ready for work.

* * *

On his way to the hospital, JD felt sick to his stomach. He was still neck-deep in a hangover, for one thing (a glass of water and two aspirin had done absolutely nothing to help) not to mention the thought of facing Perry made him want to swan-dive off the hospital roof.

His plan was to do what he’d done every other time - pretend he didn’t remember any of it. The problem was, that was a touch-and-go sort of game, seeing as he had no idea what he could have confessed to Perry last night in his stupor. He remembered the older man taking him home, but that was about it. Any words they might have exchanged had been lost as soon as JD’s head hit the pillow. 

He pulled into his usual parking space and stepped out of the car, groaning softly at the pain in his head. He spotted Turk a few cars away and waved his hands in the air. “Hey! Chocolate Bear!”

“VB!” Turk shouted back, grinning. “What’s poppin’?”

_Oh, y’know, just the blood vessels in my brain, probably_.

JD jogged over to his friend. “Man, I am exhausted. How was Carla’s last night?”

Turk wiggled his eyebrows. “Oh, it was _real_ good, if you know what I -”

“Don’t listen to him,” Carla interrupted, getting out of the driver’s side and giving Turk a look. “He fell asleep ten minutes into the movie we were watching.”

“Aw, c’mon, baby, we didn’t have to tell him that…”

Laughing with his friends, JD felt the weight on his chest lift slightly. Maybe today wouldn’t be so bad.

Then, they actually got inside.

JD had barely taken two steps through the door when he heard a familiar sharp whistle. He flinched. _And so it begins_. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Turk scrambling to leave the room, pulling a protesting Carla along with him. Hearing footsteps approach, he braced himself.

“Look, Elizabeth, _heeeere's_ the deal. I know it must be tough for you to drag yourself out of bed after a long night of mint-chocolate chip ice cream and crying your eyes out over Gilmore Girls, but as _difficult_ as it is to get up, put in your curlers, and pile on the makeup to get rid of those _pesky_ little blemishes on your Disney-princess skin, I really must insist that you do it in a way that allows for you to actually get here on time, nay, get here _early_ , so that I can do the _singular_ thing that gives me joy at this point and force you to do trivial and meaningless tasks while I lean against the wall and laugh when you slip on the coffee that I may have ‘accidentally’ spilled. So, Ginger, know that next time you’re late, I will personally take _this_ pencil -” he pulled a pencil out of his pocket and held it up - “- and shove it so far up your ass that you’ll be coughing up wood shavings for a month. We clear, Newbie?”

_Well_ someone’s _on a roll today._

JD looked down at his watch. “I’m five minutes late,” he pointed out dryly.

“Yeah, and that’s five minutes I could’ve spent with a coffee in my hand!” Perry - ahem, _Dr. Cox_ \- snapped, clapping his hands together. “Now go get me one! Chop chop!”

Deciding not to push his luck, JD rushed out of the room, making a beeline for the coffee machines.

Meanwhile, the rest of the room had gone silent, everyone staring cautiously at Dr. Cox. After a moment, he noticed this and snarled “What are you knuckleheads looking at?” 

Conversation immediately resumed.

* * *

It was lunchtime, and JD felt like he was going to pass out. 

As if the hangover wasn’t enough, Dr. Cox had apparently decided that today was the day where _every single thing_ JD did was completely, absolutely wrong.

He would say one sentence and get told to shut up. Suggest something for a patient and get a five-minute lecture on exactly why, how and in which precise way he was wrong. Hell, he was pretty sure the doctor would jump down his throat if he _breathed_ too loudly. 

So, naturally, he was hiding in the on-call room with all the lights off.

His friends had noticed that something was wrong. Elliot had been trailing him all morning, trying to get him to open up about it, so he’d taken to sprinting in the other direction whenever he saw her. Carla had tried at first, too, but JD was pretty sure she’d gotten the hint that he didn’t want to talk about it. Turk seemed a little hurt that he wouldn’t tell him what was going on, but he didn’t push it. 

JD appreciated his friends’ concern, he really did, but he just didn’t want to think about any of it right now. Which was already hard enough considering the root of all the things he was trying so hard not to think about was right here, at this very hospital, yelling at him every five minutes and calling him Felicia. 

He had finally, _finally_ managed to escape for a bit. So now he was lying flat on his back on one of the bottom bunks in the on-call room, eyes shut, head spinning painfully. He should have grabbed an ice pack to put on his forehead or something. 

For a few minutes, it was peaceful. 

Then the door slammed open, causing him to flail around with surprise and fall right off the bed, smacking his head against the frame, which really did _not_ improve his headache. Like, at all.

“Betty! What the hell are you doing? I’ve paged you four times!”

With a groan of pain, JD sat up and pulled his pager out of his pocket. Sure enough, he had four from Dr. Cox, each one sounding progressively more violent. _Lovely_.

“Didn’t hear them,” he muttered, standing up unsteadily. “Sorry.”

“You didn’t hear them? You _didn’t hear them?_ ” Dr. Cox’s voice rose dangerously. “Oh, I’m sorry, Newbie, obviously that is _so_ not your fault. In fact, y’know what we oughta do? We oughta just sue that entire company for daring to make a pager that you’re unable to hear with those tender little ears of yours. Yeah, let’s just sue ‘em straight to hell, whaddaya say, Newbie? Let’s -”

Just like that, JD couldn’t take it anymore.

“Shut _up!_ ” he half shouted, spinning to face Dr. Cox, whose eyes widened with shock at his exclamation. 

“ _What_ did you just say to me?”

“I said shut up,” hissed JD, staring him straight in the eyes, trembling slightly. “For once in your life, shut the hell up and listen to me. I don’t know what your deal is, Perry, but for the record you confuse the hell out of me, all right? You drag me to your car and take me home when I’m completely shitfaced drunk, for whatever reason, and then the next day you treat me even worse than usual. What game are you trying to play, exactly? Would you mind telling me? Because right now, I don’t know what the fuck is going on!”

Speechless, Dr. Cox just stared at him. His face had drained of color. Finally, he spoke in a quiet, rough tone. 

“You remember last night?” 

“I remember all the nights!” JD shouted in frustration. “Every single one, okay? I just pretended I didn’t to make things easier on the both of us! Which, obviously, isn’t working out too good!”

Seemingly unaffected by the sudden shouting, Dr. Cox continued to stare. “Do you remember,” he said hoarsely, “what you said last night, Newbie?”

JD felt his blood run cold. No, he didn’t remember what he’d said last night, but judging by the older man’s face, it hadn’t been anything good.

_Shit. Shit, shit, shit. What did you say to him last night, you idiot? This is why you shouldn’t overdo it with the ‘tini!_

He swallowed uncomfortably. “What did I say?”

No reply. When he looked up, Dr. Cox was avoiding his eyes, his face drawn. 

“Perry.” JD’s throat had gone dry. “What did I say last night?”

After what seemed like forever, Dr. Cox looked up, all emotion gone from his face. When he spoke, his voice was clipped, closed off. “Nothing,” he said. “Nothing, Newbie. You just said you remembered the other times. That’s all.” 

He left the room without another word, leaving JD to slump back down onto the bed, head falling into his hands. 

* * *

The rest of the day was pretty much a complete polar opposite of what the first part of the day had been. 

Now, Perry hardly looked at him, let alone spoke to him. He only said anything if he absolutely had to - in other words, where a patient was concerned. Other than that, he ignored JD completely. No girls’ names. No ranting. Nothing but dead, silent air. The coldest of cold shoulders.

Honestly, JD had almost preferred the furiously ranting and berating Dr. Cox to this chilly, silent strangeness.

However, he didn’t push it, didn’t make any effort to start another conversation. He could feel the heavy, unsaid words hanging between them, the gargantuan elephant in the room that they were both so staunchly ignoring. 

This was hell, but he had a strong gut feeling that it wasn’t yet as bad as it could be.

So JD said nothing. He went home after his shift ended at nine, went straight to his room and sat down on the bed. Stared at the wall for a while, thinking.

He knew that Perry had indeed brought him home again last night. That was a fact. 

He knew he’d said something - something big - because he wasn’t buying Perry’s lame-ass excuse about JD telling him he remembered all the other times. He probably had said that, that was true, but there was also something else. Something huge that he was missing. 

JD had a feeling he knew what it was, but he really, really, _really_ didn’t want that to be true. Because if he’d said that - if he’d told him _that_ \- he may have very well ruined everything. Perry would probably hate him forever and never speak to him again. And quite honestly, JD wouldn’t blame him. After all, what right did he have to be pining over his mentor like some sort of lovesick schoolgirl?

He clenched his jaw because _wow_ , that sounded exactly like something Perry would say. In fact, he could have a field day on this sort of information. He could go on and on and on, ranting for hours about how JD was just an annoying little girl with a hero-worship-induced crush who didn’t know what the hell she was talking about and -

JD blinked and realized with surprise that he was crying. Again. Geez, Perry was right, he was a little girl. 

_Okay, if you’re going to get over this, you need to stop calling him Perry. That makes it sound like he’s your friend. He’s not your friend, he’s your coworker. Your superior. Nothing more, nothing less. The sooner you get that through your head, the better_. 

He swallowed. That was true. He needed to stop thinking of him as Perry and start thinking of him as Dr. Cox, his bitter, sarcastic mentor. (Sort-of mentor. Probably not anymore, now that he thought about it.)

Had this changed everything? That one drunken night, when he’d said something he shouldn’t have and now - now he was here. The tears came harder. He’d really fucked it up this time. _Nice going, JD. You just don’t know when to quit, do you?_

But it wasn’t like he could help it. It wasn’t like he could just force these feelings to go away. He’d tried, at first. He’d tried so hard, when he realized it was more than just hero worship he felt when he looked at his mentor. He ignored it, pushed it away, didn’t tell anyone, not even Turk. He convinced himself he was imagining things. And all the while it grew, and grew, and didn’t go away, no matter how hard JD tried. And he’d _tried_. Eventually he succumbed to alcohol, to making himself forget, if only for a little while. That had seemed to work a little bit, at the very least.

Now everything was ruined.

He’d been able to handle things before. At least Perry - _Dr. Cox_ had been talking to him, at least he had acknowledged JD’s existence. Sometimes he was even nice to him. Rarely, but at least it was something. JD felt like he could have gone on like that, survived off that little bit of contact at least until these damn _feelings_ went away.

But the way things had been today? The cold, the blankness, the dead air? 

JD didn’t just think he couldn’t handle that. He _knew_ he couldn’t. 

So he stood up, put on his coat, and went out to his car. He didn’t tell Turk where he was going; he simply walked out without a word.

Even if this was going to be the end, JD had to tell him. He had to tell Perry.

He had to try. If he didn’t try, how could he live with himself?

(The simple fact is this: he couldn’t.)


	3. shelter as we go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Give me a minute, dammit!” he yelled as the knocking continued. He glanced down at his watch; it was nearly midnight. Who the hell was stupid enough to show up and start banging on his apartment door at midnight? Because most people knew that unless you quite literally had a death wish, outside Perry Cox's door at midnight was probably the last place you'd want to find yourself. _Ever_. 
> 
> Muttering furiously under his breath, he swung open the door and -
> 
> “Oh, not _you_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> final chapter!!! I'm really happy with how this turned out, actually. thank you so much to everyone who commented & left kudos, I appreciate it so much :^) I hope everyone likes the final installment. more jdox fic is on the way, of course!

The knock on the door was loud, sharp and unexpected. 

It was shortly followed by a flurry of other knocks, all rapid-fire, like someone was trying to break down his front door using their fists. Perry gave a low growl of frustration and heaved himself up off the couch where he’d been slumped for the past going-on-three hours.

(There was a half-empty bottle of scotch on the coffee table, but he wasn't thinking about that, just like he wasn't thinking about Newbie, just like he wasn't thinking about absolutely anything at all, because that was just _so_ much easier. In fact, the very purpose of said scotch was to aid him in not thinking about any of those things. And it had been working beautifully up until all this damn knocking, which, by the by, was _not_ helping with his steadily worsening headache.) 

“Give me a minute, dammit!” he yelled as the knocking continued. He glanced down at his watch; it was nearly midnight. Who the hell was stupid enough to show up and start banging on his apartment door at midnight? Because most people knew that unless you quite literally had a death wish, outside Perry Cox's door at midnight was probably the last place you'd want to find yourself. _Ever_. 

Muttering furiously under his breath, he swung open the door and -

“Oh, not _you_.”

There stood Newbie, looking fairly terrified but also strangely determined. He said in a slightly wavering voice, “Let me in.” Perry weighed the pros and cons of manslaughter, keeping his expression carefully blank.

(Everything in him started to collapse, and all of a sudden all that alcohol and all those hours spent not thinking were just completely eviscerated, totally irrelevant. _Pathetic_. All it took was him seeing the kid, looking at his big doe eyes, to just completely shatter him, break him down. And he _hated_ that.)

Perry started to pull the door closed, stopping when only half his face was visible. “Rebecca, trust me on this, you do _nawt_ want to be here right now. In fact, if you plan on staying alive and breathing, this is probably the very _last_ place you want to be.”

“You’re probably right,” Newbie said, standing up straighter, “but I need to talk to you about something. So let me in.” he paused. “Please.”

Perry sighed from somewhere deep in his chest. He wondered where this newfound courage was coming from, and spent a couple of seconds silently cursing this unknown origin with every fiber of his being. “You’re not gonna leave, are ya?”

“I’m not planning on it.”

“Fine.” he opened the door to allow JD to walk past him. Everything in him was screaming _bad idea, bad idea, bad fucking idea_ , but he knew that Newbie wouldn't be leaving until he had his little _intervention_ or whatever the hell this was supposed to be. “Fine, but you can’t stay long, you got that?”

Not replying, JD sat down on his couch, his eyes looking distant. Perry had a funny feeling he was having one of those fantasies of his. It was almost endearing.

( _No! No, no, a thousand times no, you did_ nawt _just think that!_ ) 

Unfortunately, they didn’t have time for fantasies. He snapped his fingers in front of the kid’s face. “Hey! Shirley! We haven’t got all night, so would you mind telling me what the hell you’re doing here?”

Snapping out of it, JD’s flinched, his head jerking backwards. He looked at Perry and Perry felt his heart sink. 

He knew. JD knew. Even if he didn’t remember, he _knew_. 

_Fuck_. 

Unable to hold his gaze, Perry looked away. JD said, in a subdued voice, “Yeah.”

“I told you, didn’t I?”

Perry shut his eyes. He had the sudden sensation of falling, his stomach dropping like he'd just gone over a massive drop on a roller coaster. 

“I told you I was in love with you.”

He clenched his jaw and still didn’t reply. 

“Please tell me I’m right because otherwise this is going to get really awkward really fast.” 

And then - 

He felt it coming. Anger, hot and surging, flashing from somewhere deep in his chest. He tried to stop it, tried to hold back, but it was no use. 

“Yeah, because it’s not already awkward, JD,” he snapped, feeling the other man flinch beside him, but not bothering to look. “And yeah. Yeah, you’re right. You were drunker than I’d ever seen you and I brought you home, don’t ask me _why_ , because I sure as hell don't know, and I was dragging you up to your apartment when all of a sudden you got all teary and blurted out _I’m in love with you!_ Which, let me tell you, _really_ threw me for a loop at the time, but then I remembered you were more smashed than Bob Kelso’s wife on her wedding night, so I didn’t sweat it. And y’know what, Newbie? You can leave right now, we can forget all about this, I won’t even torture you about it at work. You were drunk, you didn’t know what you were saying, and it’s -”

“ _No!_ ” JD burst out suddenly. His voice wasn’t just angry this time; he sounded incensed. 

(It was almost scary, this abrupt change, not that Perry would ever admit that. And anyway, didn't he deserve it at this point?)

But Newbie’s fists were clenched, his eyes were blazing, and he was standing up now, facing Perry head-on. “No, you just don’t get it, do you? I didn’t say that because I was drunk, that’s the entire damn reason I _was_ drunk, Perry, okay? I didn’t just decide to go get wasted because I felt like it, I did it because that’s the only time when I won’t be losing my _fucking_ mind thinking about you, thinking about how much I want you and how - how stupid I am for that, _dammit_ -” his voice was shattering. He clutched his head in his hands, looking tortured. “I am in love with you, Perry, and I’m _really_ fucking sorry. I tried to make it go away, alright? So just...go ahead. Do what you want. Make my life miserable, okay? I just...I had to tell you. I had to.”

JD turned away, but not before Perry saw the tears already dripping down his face. “I’ll go.”

(Before now, he hadn't realized what people meant when they said "my heart was breaking." He'd thought it was just a stupid, romance-movie phrase, used by airheads like Barbie after they'd gotten dumped by their thirty-fourth boyfriend or whatever. Stuff like that.) 

(Now, he understood.)

The kid started to walk toward the door, head down, but before he had taken even two steps Perry was grasping his arm in a vice-like grip. “Like hell you will.”

Spinning around, trying and failing to wrench his arm away, JD looked at him incredulously. “What do you -”

“Look, JD,” Perry said harshly, dragging him back to the couch and practically throwing him onto it, “I am a disaster. I break things, I shove people away, and I am a fucking _mess_. I am, quite honestly," he forced a laugh, his voice shaking - "the biggest jackass to ever walk on God's green earth. You don’t want me. Trust me, kid, you don’t want any of _this_.” he gestured to himself. JD stared at him blankly, for once without expression on his usually animated face.

Perry buried his hands in his hair and closed his eyes. He paced back and forth once, twice, three times. "Look," he said quietly, his voice strained, “JD, you deserve someone good, someone as good as you, if that’s even possible."

He turned around again, paced some more. "All I do is drive people away. Hell, for the life of me I can’t seem to figure out why _you’ve_ stuck around this long. I guess that’s why…” 

Trailing off, he stopped pacing and just stood, staring up at the ceiling. 

“Why what?” JD said quietly. 

“Never mind,” Perry turned away. _Stupid, stupid, you said too much_. “You should go home. You shouldn’t be here.”

“ _No_.” a hand gripped his arm and he was being spun around until he was practically nose-to-nose with JD. The blood in his body seemed to freeze in its tracks. He was fairly certain his brain had blown several fuses. “Why _what?_ ”

“Let go of me,” he said, but there was no conviction in his voice, and JD knew it. 

JD’s grip only tightened. His eyes were boring into Perry's, so blue they almost glowed. “No.” he said, with such fierceness in his voice that Perry felt himself flinch. His expression was resolute, every muscle in his body seemingly tensed. He was clutching Perry's arm so tightly that Perry began to fear for his circulation.

“Why won’t you let yourself be happy?” he said, taking a step forward; on instinct, Perry stepped back. His heart was slamming against his ribcage. “Why can’t you for _once_ in your life just try to let yourself feel something? Try to let yourself be _open_ with someone?” Another step forward led to another step back. “You think you’re strong because you won’t feel anything. Well, y’know what, Perry?” He stared him in the eyes, daring him to look away. 

He didn’t. In all honesty, he wasn't sure he could. 

“I think you’re afraid,” JD said quietly. “Afraid of getting hurt. Afraid of letting yourself actually, _God forbid_ , fall in love with someone.”

Perry’s back was against the wall now. He sputtered for a moment, at a loss for words, before finally gasping “Are you saying you think I’m in love with you?” As if to imply he thought this was ridiculous, what are you _thinking_ , Angela, _me_ in love with _you?_ Not in a million years, not even if we were the last two people left on earth, not even if I had to choose between you and _Pee-Pants_ , not even if -

“Yeah,” JD said simply. “Yeah, I am.”

He pressed Perry hard against the wall and kissed him. 

For about two seconds, Perry tried to resist, but moments later he knew that was useless. JD had his hands buried in his hair and the soft tug of it was making him lose his mind, he was sure of it. It _really_ wasn't very fair. Giving in completely, he gripped JD’s waist and pressed their bodies close until they fit together like puzzle pieces, all of the edges lined up. His mouth moved against JD’s, the kiss heated and frantic, until the younger man pulled away slightly and began trailing his lips across Perry’s jawline, down his neck. He moaned, unable to help himself because this was _it_ , this was fucking _it_. Finally, finally, after months and months of pretending and denying and lying to himself. 

_Finally_.

(This was everything.) 

“JD,” he said dazedly, trying to remember how to think, “JD, are you sure...do you really want…” 

He felt the younger man pull away again, cold air rushing into the place where his body had been (which Perry really didn't appreciate). “Perry,” he said in a low voice, tilting Perry’s face so that they were looking each other in the eyes, “Listen to me, for once. I want _you_. That is the only thing I want. I don’t have some...some made-up, perfectionized version of you in my mind, okay? I don't expect you to be nice, I don't expect things to be _easy_ -" he laughed, though there was no humor in it. "Hell, I _know_ it won't be easy. But that isn’t what I fell in love with, anyway. I didn't fall in love with _easy_ , I fell in love with _you_. You, exactly how you are. I don’t want anything else, because then it wouldn’t be you, you know?" he took a long breath, looking deep in thought. "It would just be...some kind of knockoff you. Which I don’t want.” he paused. “Wow, I kind of overused the word you there, didn’t I?”

Perry didn’t reply. He didn't know what the swelling feeling in his chest was, or what the slight stinging in his eyes meant. But both of those things could wait. Instead, he grabbed JD by the waist and pulled him to the couch, where he pulled him down on top of him and kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him. 

(They never even made it to the bedroom.)

* * *

Hours later, they laid together on the couch, JD with his head nuzzled up against Perry’s chest. Perry was absently playing with his hair. (Though there was so much product in it, it was hard to actually run his fingers through it. Figured.) 

“Newbie?” he said in an uncharacteristically hesitant voice. 

“Hmm?”

“Y’know how you said that whole thing about wanting me, only wanting me, et cetera et cetera et cetera…”

“Yeah?” he could tell without looking that JD was smiling. 

“So did ya mean just for a quick one-night bang, or…” he tried and failed not to let his voice show how nervous he was about the potential answer to this question. _Damn it, Per, you're already going soft!_. 

“What? No.” JD scooched up so he could look Perry in the eyes. “You know how much of a hopeless romantic I am. I was talking _all in_ , baby. Goin’ steady like they did in the seventies.” he faltered, expression growing anxious. “Why, did...do _you_ want it to just be a one-night stand?” 

Perry sighed. “No. I...I can’t promise I’ll be good at it, Newbie, but I’d like to try out this relationship...thing with you. Actually, I can pretty much promise you I’m gonna be terrible at it. You sure you’re up for dealing with that?”

JD was already nodding. “I’m up for anything.” He snuggled back up against Perry’s chest. “I do have one condition, though.”

“What’s that?” 

“I get to be the little spoon.” he snickered. “Oh, and you have to tell Turk.”

Perry’s face broke into an evil grin. “ _I_ get to tell Gandhi? Oh glory be, hallelujah, _hell yes_. This will be fun. Oh, he’s going to lose his _shit_ …” Gleefully, he tried to picture what the expression on Turk's face would be the exact moment he found out. He'd have to bring a camera - it was going to be so glorious that failing to capture it on film would be an absolute disgrace. And they couldn't just casually tell him, oh no no _no_...he was thinking intense make-out session outside the surgery room right as Turk was in the middle of a surgery. The more difficult the better. Maybe they could even get balloons and streamers. _Oooh, a confetti cannon!_

“Okay, mistake,” JD mumbled, but he was already half-asleep, cuddled up close to Perry and pretty much as happy as he could get. 

Not that Perry would admit it, but he didn't hate the cuddling. 

In fact, he'd even go as far as to say he enjoyed it. Just a little. 

(Okay, so Perry was melting at the sight of JD with his cheek squished up against Perry's chest. But nobody ever needed to know that. _Ever _.)__

__Just then, he realized what the swelling feeling in his chest (which he'd felt earlier and which still hadn't ceased) was. It was happiness. For the first time in years, he felt...well, _happy_. _ _

__And with JD around, he had a feeling it was going to become a regular occurrence._ _


End file.
